Caretaker government limits progress

Under the leadership of the incumbents in Montgomery, Alabama is not making any progress against her greatest problems, and they are in fact contributing toward them.

The overwhelming incumbent majority has now had four sessions of the Legislature in which they could work their will. They have done nothing of substance to reverse the deterioration of the state of the state. That’s why the denizens of Goat Hill can best be called Alabama’s Caretaker Government, only they are not taking very good care of our most pressing problems nor are they capitalizing on our most valuable potential.

To support this contention, the following points about our state are offered:

Numerous more instances could be cited, but this is a quick picture that the new majority is allowing Alabama’s fertile soil to lie fallow. The new leaders are not good stewards of our homelands.

However, the Alabama Republicans delivered exactly what they promised: cuts to the budget and smaller government. The results to the public good and well-being have been devastating.

As Alabamians, we are all tethered jointly in our future economic fortunes. For example, the Birmingham and Huntsville areas together account for over 40 percent of our state’s Gross Domestic Product. So the impact of the Jefferson County bankruptcy is adversely affecting Dothan and the port of Mobile.

Our economy is like a bowl of Jell-O. You poke one place, and it shakes elsewhere. We are all in this together. Even those making money would be making more if the state’s economy were not pulling a ball and chain and our unemployment rate were not so high. We are capable of growing so much faster.

Our situation is far from helpless. Alabamians are not ideologues by nature. We are practical people. Let’s explore solutions together. Please join the debate about how the economy has affected you and your family. Write letters to the editor and call local talk shows to express your opinions as to what should be done.

My intent is to seek pragmatic answers to our economic problems. If we can solve those, I think many of our other problems will solve themselves. The best way to find answers is in a wholesome, open, public, political debate. My favorite politician once said, “In the laboratory of debate, the truth has a way of leaping up.”

Theology is without a doubt the noblest profession, but the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us that politics is the second-most noble; it too touches all of us. Won’t you please join me in this second-most noble undertaking for the sake of your family and mine and for the sake of our precious generations yet to come?

Doug Smith has worked for several Alabama Congressmen and governors and wrote the Alabama Development Office Act and the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs Act and served as the first director of those organizations. He can be reached at (334) 467-1486 or sdoug.smith@gmail.com.